Today I send you a small mournful Gift; which, I need not doubt, will be very precious to you. You remember perhaps I got
a Portrait done, at Dumfries, before you went away, of One who has now left us, and who is forever dear to us all. I have
now had a few Copies taken of it; am sending one to each of the Seven of us who still remain (no other gets a Copy, for there were only seven, “seven good ones,” bargained for); and here inclosed is your share. Having one still over, not upon a Card, I put it in; you may give
in1 to Tom,2 who used to write to his good Grandmother, and was well loved by her: he will perhaps remember her when we also are all away.
The Likeness seems to me rather good. The poor fellow that did the Oil-Picture, who was once a Mill-boy at Glenessland, took
to drinking &c after his success as a Painter at Dumfries, and is now dead himself.3 The Copies are of the kind called Photograph (done by the sunlight, and a certain apparatus they have): it is easy to take as many Copies as one likes; but I wanted only
Seven.— You can keep yours in the Cover where it is, till you get a little frame for it. I have sent one to Jenny by this same
mail across the Ocean; and that is the last I have. Enough said now of that small object, whh will give rise to many thoughts in you, very sad but not unblessed, I trust.

It seems a long while since we got any full stock of news from the Bield4 in Canada. I think a Letter to Grahame was the last direct thing. We understand you to be toiling along in the old course
of labour and exertion; and that you do not at all forget us any more than we you, in our silent multifarious reflexions and
anxieties. I grow yearly more silent; write, in the Letter way, less and less, for a long time back,—in fact no Letter at all that has not a clear claim to be written.
The swift flight of Time; the inevitable nearness of the Evening and Night “wherein no man can work,”5 admonishes me continually to do what I can while it is Day. The frivolous noise of men about me is rather an oppression to me than otherwise; and I much
prefer my silent upper room here,—and go puddling on, accomplishing little almost nothing (for it is terribly unhandy work I am upon, and no end to the quantity of it), yet still refusing to give up.— If I live, I shall get done with it; and then, it is one [of]6 my dreams that I shall perhaps have a sail to America, and see my true Brother again before all end! Well do I remember always
the pair of little brown fists (probably fifty years ago now) which I noticed suddenly interfere in some battle I was fighting
on the Ecclefechan street, one summer afternoon,—a memorable and pretty little phenomenon to me!7

The Doctor is here at present; lodges about a mile off (the three Boys, his late Wife's are with him for a week or two just
now): I see him almost every night for a little while. He makes no complaint, go[es] about, busy with Books &c; and indeed takes his cross fortune, and confused ups and downs, in a very fine and goodnatured
way. He has had a little whiff of ailment (surgical and bilious, I believe,—a boil in a bad place) this last fortnight; but is now out, and stirring as before. Grahame is growing very dim and heavy; perfect health of body, but his memory much gone, poor old man.
G. Bell of Whitecastles is dead; his Brother Thomas was gone before: brisk young men whom perhaps you remember.— Dear Brother, this Cover will stand no more weight. I mean to write again soon. God bless you all.

2. Alexander's son. Janet Hanning wrote to her nephew, 8 April: “Your cousin Thomas is quite tired of farming we expect him down here in a few weeks to learn the forwarding business with
your Uncle Robert he is to stop with us” (MS: NLS Acc. 9086).

4. Alexander's farm, nr. Brantford, Ontario. Janet gave news in her letter, 8 April: “Your Uncle was here from Bield last week Thomas and Jessie was with him. / We went down on the railway to see the falls
of Niagara we all went but your Uncle Robt he was so busy he could not get away. it is fifty miles from here to the falls.
It is a most splendid sight” (MS: NLS Acc. 9086).

7. “Carlyle while struggling against superior numbers, suddenly became aware that a reinforcement had arrived in the shape of
his brother Alick, who ‘with little fists like walnuts rained rapid blows upon the enemy,’ and helped to turn the tide of
battle” (A. Carlyle, NL 2:173).